European stock market, economy and companies update (May 10, 2012)

After the opening the session higher, European equity markets have pared gains. Spain's IBEX-35, which was the worst performer on yesterday's session, has outperformed, while the CAC-40 in France has underperformed. European banks are mostly higher as of the time of writing, following the sharp losses seen on the prior session. Various European banks have reported better than expected results for the session, including Danske Bank [DANSKE.DK] and KBC [KBC.BE]. Upcoming events risks for later today include the BoE's policy meeting and earnings out of large Italian bank Unicredit [UCG.IT]